Trains

A long, long time ago a little boy received a used train set for Christmas. It was a Lionel train and he was about eight years old. It was a complete train set.. an Engine (It had a spot to drop in special tablets to make smoke and everything), a coal tender, a milk can car that rolled the cans off of the car, an oil tanker car, a log car that hauled logs and dumped them, one car had a helicopter that rode on the car..you could wind it up and fly it off of the car and a Caboose that would light up. Not all of these cars survived a small boy and his neighborhood pals..some cars were blown up with firecrackers, one car was lost in an unexpected and huge fire in the basement it seemed that clothespins doused in lighter fluid will start a really good fire. Some cars were sold off for spending money, some were given away. Only two remained. The Engine and the Coal Tender…we carted around a box marked train set..for years.

We never really had room to set up a train, and Far Guy was busy with other hobbies. When we lived in North Dakota he finally had room to set it up in the basement. We built a mountain and bridges..our scenery was awesome. I bought him a caboose one year for his birthday..50 bucks for one caboose..but it was in great shape! Then we moved, and it all went back into a box marked Train Set again..we needed a larger box.

The Train Set stayed in that box until recently, with building the house and building furniture and cabinets..it always was a "someday project". Far Guy was all set to build something upstairs.. remember we don’t live upstairs..we live downstairs. I used to have my office up there, I tossed, and sorted for weeks. We hauled out my huge oak desk, there was finally room for Far Guys Trains. He built a table on wheels, it is a four by eight sheet of plywood. He can go up there and play engineer whenever he likes. His train hobby is a work in progress. He has two trains now, his old Lionel which is O scale and a HO model train that I gave him one year for Christmas. Right now they are on the same board..I think that another board should be built on wheels so that it can be stored underneath the original one..it could be wheeled out whenever. The best part of any hobby is shopping for bargains and looking for ideas. Far Guy found an original Lionel Train Station at a garage sale this past summer, amongst a bunch of toys..it was a whole dollar. A nice bargain!!

Since Far Guys Train Transformer is very old, he has a special light hooked up for a signal that the train sets power is still on..he has it hooked to an old Tilt-a- Whirl piece of scenery. If it is lit up, then the trains power is still on. I think it is pretty cool and it goes well with some of his other treasures that he enjoys on the wall behind his train set.

Recently he has been working on some model airplanes..that is an entirely different project. He has a number of hobbies and interests..I think you have to have something to occupy your time during the long winters we have up here. We have been to lots of different train and hobby shops all over the country, each one is an adventure:)

One Response to Trains

“The best part of any hobby is shopping for bargains and looking for ideas.” I like the way you think. I showed this post to my hubby and we had so much fun talking about maybe someday us actually having a train set and making some of the set ourselves. Neither one of us has been around hobbies like this before but we both have always liked model trains so much. These are great pictures in this post and it was a fun way to tell the story.